ELOHIM, a South Korean high-tech silicon capacitor semiconductor R&D company, has partnered with a global company to develop an ultra-small size, high-density silicon capacitor for 5G applications. The company plans to use 5G smart devices as a starting point to expand its application areas to autonomous driving and artificial intelligence.
ELOHIMs silicon capacitor is a tiny and has a thickness of 60 nanometers. Conventional multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) have a thickness of several hundred μm.
The capacitance refers to the capacity to charge electricity, and the new capacitor has the capacity of 500nF/mm2 (nanofarads/millimetersquare), which is an ultra-dense capacity level. The capacitance of the existing silicon capacitors is one-fifth of the ELOHIM’s product.
ELOHIM developed silicon capacitors using differentiated process technologies, such as high-K metal gates that effectively reduce leakage current while improving circuit integration, and dielectric film that prevents charge leakage.
The number of connection terminals is also special. Compared to MLCC or general silicon capacitors with 2 terminals per mm2, ELOHIM’s silicon capacitors has more than 50 terminals per mm2. It is more advantageous to optimize the power of electronic devices when there is more terminals. Optimizing the power allows device to reach maximum performance.
ELOHIM’s silicon capacitors are so small that they can be placed in close proximity to highly integrated high-performance system semiconductors. They can easily optimize the power even in the high frequency band. It can reduce the noise by one-tenth the level of inductance compared to MLCC or general silicon capacitors. Inductance refers to the strength at which voltage is induced by electromagnetic waves.
ELOHIM CEO Yeong-ryul Park said, “It is expected that silicon capacitors will be integrated into high-tech semiconductor packages such as 2.5-dimensional semiconductor substrates and 3-dimensional (3D) stacked packages. We are also developing silicon capacitors that are embedded on a printed circuit board (PCB).”
ELOHIM is a technology venture company made up of experts from global semiconductor companies. It develops turn-key solutions which consist of silicon manual element design, process, packaging, and testing.
CEO Park said, “We plan to expand our business to AI and autonomous driving as well as 5G applications. We will lead the power optimization market with heterogeneous integration technology.”